


One Moment

by Airen_Thiren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, HMS Harmony Discord's Jily Meets Harmony Challenge, Harmony - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Redeemed Wormtail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:56:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airen_Thiren/pseuds/Airen_Thiren
Summary: One moment can change everything. A moment's humility can lead to lasting wisdom. A moment's remembrance can bring about fortitude. A moment of honesty can strip away years of lies. One moment can change everything, and Harry Potter shall witness or find himself in a series of such moments.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36
Collections: HMS Harmony Discord Writing Fest - Jily Meets Harmony Challenge





	One Moment

**Author's Note:**

> The following work is a last minute submission to a writing challenge on the HMS Harmony Discord Server. The rules were as follows:
> 
> The Jily Meets Harmony Challenge
> 
> Must include:  
> 1\. James/Lily and Harry/Hermione strictly.  
> 2\. James and Lily must be alive. Either by surviving Halloween, coming back to life, or their canon deaths never happening/being avoided. (Can include either Time Travel or a Canon Divergence event)  
> 3\. Sirius should also live and be free/exonerated.  
> 4\. Lily must at some point braid Hermione's hair.  
> 5\. James and Harry must at some point fly together  
> 6\. Harry cannot have a Boy Who Lived (Or Wrong Boy Who Lived) sibling.  
> 7\. No Jily bashing  
> 8\. Include the requirements and description of the challenge in an Author's Note.

_They were everywhere. Eyes black as the void between the stars. Robes flowing about them like smoke. The only thing displayed on their faces was death. They were everywhere, and they had found him._

His own screams woke him up. Bolting upright in his bed, the man who had only just saved himself from the nightmare began to cry as the fear overwhelmed him. He couldn’t handle this anymore. He was too afraid. He remembered some of the things those monsters had done from what he read in the papers. Tortured to a catatonic state, mauled to death by a werewolf, words carved into their skin, he had even read about a religious muggleborn who had been flogged and crucified. And these were only the followers. He shuddered to think what the master would be capable of. It all seemed so hopeless. What could anyone hope to do against such reckless hate? The thought entered his mind before he could stop it.

_Surrender. Give them what they want, and they’ll leave you alone._

Revulsion at his own mind surged through him. What kind of man entertains such thoughts? How could a man such as he even think it? He was supposed to brave, right?

_Brave men don’t have nightmares. Maybe you aren’t brave._

Shame at the pathetic state he was in, at his blubbering tears and sweaty, pallid skin, blanketed him. He folded in on himself, as though trying to protect the most vulnerable or sacred part of himself. He knew he was a coward. He always knew, deep down. The others were always so brave, so strong. How they ever put up with him, he would never know. He never had ideas like them, never faced danger like them, never took any risks. He was always bringing up the rear, always hiding behind them or in the shadows, always out of danger when the consequences came knocking.

“I’m so worthless,” he whispered into the empty room, a space only he ever saw. And so, the man cried as he had never cried before, weeping beneath the tides of fear, shame, and self-loathing that had reached depths he had never known before. What could such a coward as he do, surrounded by people as brave as them?

His answer came in the form of a memory.

_“From now on, we do things the right way.”_

The man remembered when his friend had said that. He had gone to tell him about the epic prank being pulled very soon but had received a reaction he hadn’t been expecting. Instead of laughing at the potential reaction, his friend had exploded in shock, rage, and terror. They had hurried to the scene, saving the prank victim from worse than soiled underwear. After everything had calmed down, they all met in secret, and the savior had laid out some new ground rules for their endeavors. There was much argument and disagreement, and for a moment, it seemed as though their group was about to come apart at the seams. It almost did when, in a fit of anger, one of them had exploded.

_“I THOUGHT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO STICK TOGETHER!”_

_“BUT WE NEVER PUT EACH OTHER IN DANGER! WHICH IS WHAT YOU DID!” the other had shouted back._

_All fire died at that proclamation, and his friend had sunk into his chair, realizing for the first time the potential repercussions for what might have happened. After much consoling, apologizing, and crying, their meeting had concluded with their most public figure making a solemn statement_

_“Friends don’t let friends fall.”_

“Friends don’t let friends fall,” he repeated. As the dim glow of twilight began to brighten outside, the man looked out his window. He was falling, falling beneath a tide of fear and shame. He needed his friends now more than ever. They would keep him from falling.

And maybe he could finally learn to be brave.

* * *

**October 21, 1981**

_It is said that prophecies are tricky things. Consider how many prophecies would never have come to pass had their subjects ignored them in the first place. Kings that lock away or banish their daughters only create the circumstances that lead to their grandsons killing them. Conquerors devastate the village that births their archenemy. And the particularly deluded, who see themselves as the Chosen Ones often become the Dark Lords in the end. In every story and myth of our history, a prophecy heard seems to foment its own fulfillment._

_But what happens when a prophecy goes unheard? What manner of fate would befall the unwitting subjects of a prophecy they knew nothing of? No one knows, and it is nearly impossible to find out. As has been thoroughly recorded, only the subjects of a prophecy can retrieve it, and many of these prophecies have been unclaimed for decades. There are some rumors even of prophecies centuries old that have yet to be resolved. One must wonder if they ever will be fulfilled._

_The ongoing debate about prophecies and fate is one every witch or wizard is likely to have at least once in their life. The two leading stances are as follows…_

**_Knock! Knock!_ **

Lily’s attention was brought from the article she was reading to the doorway of the nursery. Casting one more look at her baby boy as he slept, she quietly closed the door and descended the stairs. When she arrived at the door, she peered through the peephole and saw none other than Peter Pettigrew on her doorstep. Without hesitation, she swung open the door to greet one of her dearest friends.

“Peter! It is wonderful to see you. Do come in.” The man gave her a soft half-smile.

“Hi, Lily. How is Harry?” the rotund man asked.

“Growing faster than I would like and proving to be just as much a handful as his father,” she replied, receiving a small chuckle from the Marauder

“Well, he is sure to have inherited something from you other than your eyes. Maybe there’s hope for us yet,” Peter softly joked. Lily smiled amusedly at the comment as she led one of her husband’s dearest friends into their sitting room.

She noticed that the man seemed to be dragging his feet, his postured was hunched in on itself, and he seemed to keep his hands close to himself.

“Peter,” Lily called softly, which still startled the man, as he was almost always jumpier than most. “What’s wrong?”

Peter cast his eyes back down to his hands, wringing them together as he thinned his lips. In the glow of the day, Lily could just make out the faint dark circles under his eyes. Though Peter had always been small amongst their group, he seemed smaller now, almost as if a strong word would send him crashing to the floor or flying across the room. Everyone carried a touch of this look around them lately, but Peter seemed to be the embodiment of the fear they all felt.

“I-“ he squeaked to a stop. He tried to take a deep breath, but it only came shakily. Lily began to grow more worried and moved to sit next to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“I think…you and James had best find a new secret keeper.”

“What?” Lily asked with wide eyes. “Why do you think that?”

Hesitantly, Peter recounted all the nights he’d woken up screaming. He told her of his fears, of his despair.

“I’m just such a coward. If they found me, I’m afraid that they would only have to mildly threaten me before I spilled everything. Please, choose someone else. I’m not who you think I am…” he finally trailed off, head hanging in shame.

It was at thing point that the soft patter of little feet was heard. Harry waddled into the room, completely oblivious to the serious atmosphere of the adults’ conversation. Seeing his mother and a familiar looking man, whom he knew not to be his father but was a friend, Harry wasted no time in stumbling his way over to the grown-ups. The child saw that the man with his mother was the small, quiet man with the beady eyes. He never played with Harry much, but Harry liked him. He was a good person to have around when he wanted to just play by himself. He grabbed the man’s pants leg.

Peter startled at the touch, not expecting the little tyke to show up in the middle of a serious conversation. He looked down at the little boy, whose eyes were curious and unjudging. Peter couldn’t help but give a small smile at the innocent boy. A smile said boy returned with his own that spread his little cheeks.

Lily felt her own smile forming at the interaction.

“You may not trust yourself to be brave, Peter, but Harry seems to like you. I know James, Sirius, and Remus would give their lives for you. I trusted you enough to agree to you being our secret keeper. Maybe you should trust in our judgment.”

Peter’s smile slowly faded, his doubt creating a thick barrier to her words. Lily sighed and scooped up her son. She sat back on the couch, Harry in her lap, and looked to the man before her.

“I’ll talk to James when he gets back. We’ll let you know what we decide later, but I don’t think either of us will be changing our minds, Peter. I suppose you’ll have to either prove us right or wrong. The choice is yours now, my friend.”

“I’m afraid to make any choice, Lily. What if I choose wrong?”

At this, Lily leveled him with a hard stare. Even with her son happily chewing on his stuffed animal, Lily Potter could still make him feel as though he were dealing with a force of nature. Ultimately, she said five words.

“Then deal with the consequences.”

* * *

_“Then deal with the consequences.”_

Those words echoed in Peter’s mind for days after he left the Potter home. Days of only going out as a necessity, of constantly checking over his shoulder for Death Eaters, and of being largely left alone with only his own possessions to accompany him passed by in an anxious crawl. Lily was right. She and James remained steadfast in their belief that Peter would not let them down. He remembered the anxiety that mounted after receiving the message. He had to remove himself from Order duties because his anxiety was overcoming him, as many in the Order noticed. When asked about it, he held his tongue. Lily was largely the gentlest of his friends, and even her words did little to comfort him. What would these people have said to him if he told them about his fear of finding himself to be a traitor?

He feared the answer, at first. It was only after a night when Remus had visited that Peter began to hope that he could be brave. Remus, the calmest one of their group, had sat with Peter, listening to his fears, his haunted dreams, and his deep shame. He never spoke more than urging his friend to let it all out. Only after Peter had cried out as many tears of shame as his body could produce, did his friend finally speak.

Remus told Peter that there must have been a reason the Sorting Hat had placed him in Gryffindor. Hat-stall or not, Peter was ultimately deemed worthy of the red and gold lion, and the old relic was never wrong. With a few more words of encouragement and relayed faith, Remus had bid his friend goodnight. That was the night Peter began to feel a bit braver.

* * *

**November 11, 1981**

Weeks later, on an autumn day spent in Diagon Alley with his friends and the first of the new generation, the question of his identity was answered. The war had been in an extended lull, with no new Death Eater sightings for a couple months. Like Peter, many people were beginning to hope that the group had imploded or had given up their cause. People began going out just for the sake of going out. Whether to enjoy some fresh air on a cool day, or to meet with friends who had long been out of reach, people were starting to smile once again. Few were smiling more than the Marauders, who had finally reunited after months spent apart on mission or in hiding. Those smiles faded when the pops and cracks of apparition sounded throughout the street.

Their uniforms had remained unchanged, as had their ruthless tactics. No sooner had a Death Eater materialized than he had begun throwing curse after curse at whoever caught his eye. His brother would appear in another area, throwing his own curses wildly. Panic spread like wildfire throughout the crowd, base instincts overriding trained rationale for many. As dust and debris began to rise into the air, the Marauders acted, circling around Lily and Harry, wands out and ready to cut down anyone that dared try to harm their own. Peter was unknowing that his hands weren’t shaking anymore.

The first Death Eater to spot them didn’t even get a chance to level his wand at them before Sirius petrified him, as Remus sent a spell that sent the stiff man spinning and twisting into the air, before landing and bouncing like a stiff board. With those first spells, an ambush turned into a pitched battle for survival. The Marauders, still shielding the young son of one of their own, quickly began carving a path through the pandemonium to get out of Diagon. Lily, recovering from the shock of the attack, quickly contacted the rest of the Order, who would no doubt be arriving soon. Peter never recognized the lack of blubbering he was known for.

They had been nearing the exit into the Leaky Cauldron when a thick cloud of black smoke swirled into existence before them and all the others running from the Death Eaters. It coalesced into the eerie form of the one man every other feared. Lily shielded her son behind her, and the Marauders shielded her, wands trained on the self-styled Dark Lord. Peter hadn’t hesitated like he might have once.

“Potters! Show yourselves!” hissed the vile man. Lily and James tensed, and Harry whimpered into the hollow of his mother’s neck. That little cry drew the gaze of Voldemort, and with a wave of his wand, the Dark Lord sent a spell rocketing for the little boy.

What happened next, no one would ever truly know. Peter would only remember diving into the path of the spell with the intention to protect his friends. And intercept the spell he did, along with the rest of the Marauders and Lily. Five people, all standing between the Dark Lord and the little Harry Potter, all acting to protect an innocent little boy.

The spell shot on a ruinous trajectory before Sirius leapt before it. Impacting into his torso, Sirius cried out in pain as the spell shot through him and out the other side.

_Far away, a diary leaked a dark mist from its pages._

Remus leapt behind him, taking the spell for himself.

_In an abandoned shack, a ring hissed and screeched as a black mist oozed out of it._

Peter, believing two of his dearest friends to be dead or dying and refusing to let two more of his friends die, shot between the spell and its target as it burst out Remus’s shoulder blade. It impacted him between his eyes, and he knew no more.

_The ancient cup of Helga Hufflepuff, buried deep in the Lestrange vault, set off ancient alarms in the Gringotts vault. The two Goblins who investigated would know the cursed item stored in their vault and of its destruction. They would never speak of it to anyone._

Peter would later hear from others how the spell shot through him, and how it passed through both James and Lily before it impacted into little Harry. Both parents had covered their son with their own bodies, still holding on to a vain hope of shielding him from the spell.

_Hidden in a remote cave on the seaside, a locket emitted a black, smoky piece of a tainted soul. It would remain hidden and lost for many years._

_Buried away in the Room of Hidden Things at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw was purged of its own taint._

But despite the efforts of his parents and their closest friends, Voldemort’s spell found its mark. It slammed into the crying boy’s forehead. What happened next, the terrified crowd would remember forever. A blinding flash of light burst from the point of contact, and the spell seemed to bounce of the head of the small child, retracing it’s path through the adults, and right back to the tip of the Dark Lord’s wand. Said Dark Lord let out an unnatural scream as he seemed to implode upon himself. Before anyone react, Tom Marvolo Riddle was no more. And Harry Potter would forever be known as the Boy Who Lived.

And Peter Pettigrew remained a proud Marauder until his dying days. 

**Author's Note:**

> I agonized for months over how to answer the challenge, specifically how to make James and Lily survive Halloween of 1981. Idea after idea was tried and discarded in my head. I found my answer only last week when I was reading a text that has been an important cornerstone of my life. It spoke of the idea of redemption, and I realized a commonly overlooked subject of redemption in this fandom: Peter Pettigrew. 
> 
> This is only the first chapter, explaining how they survived. It will likely also be the most serious/dark of the chapters, as now that James and Lily have survived, I can focus on fluff and romance and sweet moments between Jily, Harmony, or both. I hope you enjoy.


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